A Web Site about the International Light Source Community

On February 17, 2005, the international light source community, including the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory, launched the first website dedicated to providing the media, general public, and scientific community with the latest news and information about and from the world’s accelerator-driven light sources (synchrotrons and free-electron lasers) and about the science carried out by users of these facilities.

The web site — www.lightsources.org — was developed and is jointly maintained by the lightsource.org Collaboration, whose members represent the world's light source facilities in Europe, North America, and Asia. Support for the project is provided by science funding agencies of many nations, including the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences.

Users of light sources around the world are advancing research and development in fields as diverse as medicine, drug design, environmental science, agriculture, minerals explorations, advanced materials, forensics, engineering, and materials fabrication. lightsources.org is designed to heighten awareness of the contributions made by these researchers.

Accelerator-driven light sources can be large, roughly circular machines or linear machines (usually about the size of a football field to much larger) that accelerate electrons to almost the speed of light. It acts like a gigantic microscope that generates intense beams of brilliant light to view the microstructure of materials.

Visit www.lightsources.org for the latest news releases on cutting-edge areas of advanced light source applications for science and technology from facilities around the world. Anyone can subscribe free of charge to “News Flash,” which will email subscribers when news releases and other light source information is posted to the website. Also available on the website are an image bank of light source-related photos and graphics, clippings of news stories, links to light source facility websites, and relevant articles and presentations.